Los Yungas is one of the two places in Bolivia where coca - cocaine's raw material - can be grown legally, albeit in limited amounts.

Bolivians have been growing it for centuries, since the time of the Inca empire.

Irene Morales says today's poverty is similar to slavery.

The Afro-Bolivian "cocaleros", or coca-growers, have adopted this indigenous tradition and work hard planting and harvesting the coca bushes.

Irene Morales, an Afro-Bolivian woman, tends her coca bushes barefoot, hacking into the hard earth in her steep and small plot of land.

"We might not be slaves any more but we Afros are very poor, which is similar to slavery," she says, holding a bunch of coca leaves.

"If we don't take good care of our small plantations, we have nothing, nothing at all. And we are always hated and discriminated against."

But now, for the first time since they arrived in Bolivia as slaves, they believe attitudes towards them are slowly changing.

Running for office

"At least we are mentioned in the new constitution as one of the 36 Bolivian nationalities," says Jorge Medina, an Afro-Bolivian leader who hopes to run for parliament in the December elections.

"Yet this is mostly an indigenous constitution and we are not considered indigenous people like the Aymara, the Quechua or the Guarani."

If elected, he will be the first Afro-Bolivian to have become a political representative in Bolivia, a country that elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, three years ago.

If Barack Obama is President of the United States, why should an Afro not be able to be in parliament here in Bolivia?

Jorge Medina, Afro-Bolivian leader

"We back this process of change started by Morales, because it is the only way we, the voiceless, can have a voice," Mr Medina adds.

"But there is still a long way to go. There are people here in Bolivia who have no idea that there are Afros in this country. There are others who do not want to believe we exist."

At Medina's office, only four pictures hang on the walls - one of Bob Marley, one of Kunta Kinte (from the Alex Haley novel, Roots), one of Malcolm X and one of Martin Luther King.

A few years ago the Afro-Bolivians started to develop links with other black communities on the continent to try to get international recognition.

Jorge Medina broadcasts Afro-Bolivian issues on his radio show

"Afros have no frontiers. Drums connect the Afros from all over Latin America and the Caribbean with Africa, with our roots out there in Senegal, Congo, Guinea, and Angola," Mr Medina says during the radio show African Roots which he presents on Radio Yungas, in the town of Chulumani.

Every Friday, Jorge Medina uses his radio programme to speak about issues affecting the Afro-Bolivian community.

"There is still discrimination, there is still racism, there is still xenophobia here in Bolivia But if Barack Obama is president of the United States, why should an Afro not be able to be in the parliament here in Bolivia?" he asks.

"But let it be clear, we are not here in Bolivia only to make people dance to black music. We are here to make people think, believe and consider the black people. This is our awakening."

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